Chapter 12
Twelve
Don’t come around me if your dokies aren’t okie.
—Apollo to Copper
APOLLO
I was asleep and in the best place I’d ever slept before in my life, when I was jolted awake by a banging on the front door.
Irrational anger surged through me at the interruption. Followed right on the heels of my anger was a wave of sadness that felt like it nearly overwhelmed me.
My breathing hitched, and my eyes squeezed shut as I tried to block out what had happened yesterday.
We’d only been asleep for a total of two hours at that point, and as I looked at the clock on the bedside table, it made me even more angry because whomever was on the other side of the door knew they were waking us up.
Six in the morning was an insane time to visit.
I got up and took in the sleeping woman who hadn’t woken despite the banging on the door.
Fuck, she was a heavy sleeper.
Which scared the piss out of me because if she was this heavy of a sleeper—and could sleep through literal pounding—that wasn’t safe.
The building could be on fire and someone could be pounding at her door to wake her up, and she’d sleep through it.
Deciding that was an issue for later, though, I headed for the front door and glanced through the peephole.
I spotted her sister on the other side, and I nearly groaned.
From the texts I’d read between the two women after I’d bought her a new phone, I knew that they weren’t on the best of terms right now.
And based on the luggage with the woman, I had a feeling that she’d done the right thing and had moved out of Eugene’s place.
I opened the door, keeping it blocked from her.
“Can I help you?”
The bitch frowned. “Who are you?”
“I could ask the same, since you’re banging on my apartment, waking me up after only having two hours of sleep,” I snapped, hoping she’d fall for it because I could desperately use another four to five hours of sleep.
It was a bald-faced lie, of course, but she didn’t need to know that right now.
“My sister lives here?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Been my place for two years.”
I didn’t want her here.
In fact, based on how bitchy she’d been to Dru in those text messages, I may never want her here.
“Oh.” She frowned. “Are you sure? Because this is the address that the attendant gave me.”
I’d fix that as soon as she left.
It’d take two minutes on my phone, max.
I raised an eyebrow at her and said, “You seriously aren’t questioning whether or not I’m the one that lives here, right?”
“I guess not.” She scrunched up her nose. “Weird.”
I closed the door on her then, heading for the bedroom where I’d left my phone in my pants.
My gaze went to the bed where Dru was still seriously knocked out, and I paused for a few seconds because Jesus, was she beautiful.
Forcing myself to look away and not study how her luscious thigh was on display, I picked up my pants and searched for my phone.
The clink of my belt buckle right next to her head didn’t stir her, either.
“Jesus, baby,” I said to her as she remained completely still, heavy breaths the only indication that she was even alive at this point. “You sleep like the dead.”
I would have to ask her why that was, and if she’d always done it later.
For now, I had a few things to take care of.
It took me all of a minute to break into the apartment complex’s systems. It took me less than that to find Dru’s information.
I changed her information to instead reflect mine and then, for good measure, I took her credit card off the lease and put mine on there.
I then took a few minutes extra to start a new savings account with her at my bank, so the money she paid for her “rent” would instead route to her new account at my bank. That way she felt like she was still paying her rent, even though I would be.
There was another knock at the door, but I ignored it and instead closed the bedroom door and lay back down.
They’d come back or they wouldn’t, but I was too tired to deal with them today.
My body felt heavy—a feeling I knew well.
Death always felt like that to me.
Anytime someone died, I’d feel this oppressive weight balance on my shoulders that physically felt like I was sick.
That was exactly how I felt this time, and I just wanted to forget for a little bit.
I didn’t want to think about the fact that my best friend since I was twelve had passed away, along with his wife.
I was going to deny it until I was forced not to, which was going to come up very quickly later this afternoon.
Until then, I was going to sleep and ignore the world—if they’d let me.
The next time I woke up it was to a very asleep woman passed out on my chest, her legs on either side of one of my own.
Her hair was literally everywhere. I could feel it on my arms, some of it tickling my abs. Other strands along my own head.
Hell, there was even some in my mouth.
I pulled the strands in my mouth out, and when I did, it caused her to stir.
She lifted her face up from my chest and she stared in my eyes blankly for a few long seconds before she said, “You’re awake?”
I nodded. “Are you?”
“No,” she grumbled and laid her head back down.
I barely had it in me to grin, but I did gather some of her hair and try to contain it.
It didn’t work, but I did enjoy threading my fingers through her hair.
“Are you hungover?” she asked.
My lips twitched, even that movement cost me. “Nope. Don’t get drunk very often. It takes a lot.” My voice cracked. “Knight was the lightweight.”
“Knight,” she breathed as she once again looked up at me.
“He was my best friend,” I croaked.
Her face fell. “I’m so sorry.”
I swallowed back tears and said, “Yeah, me, too.”
She slowly started to stroke my side, and her fingers were distracting enough that my brain went into survivor mode and switched directions really fast.
That direction went to the way that she felt lying on top of me. The way her hair felt silky smooth in my fist. The way that her pussy felt against my thigh.
The delicious weight of her body settled on top of mine—now that felt even better.
I’d had plenty of women in my life. I’d even been married to a woman that liked to cuddle.
The difference was, I didn’t like to cuddle. I always felt suffocated. And though I was affectionate, I didn’t like when we slept close to each other. Let alone her on top of me.
The only person that’d been able to break me of my habit had been Tavi, and it’d driven Aurora absolutely nuts.
Honestly, I felt like that’d been the downfall of our relationship.
Her love language was physical touch, and mine had been anything but that.
She couldn’t stand that I could hold Tavi for literal hours, but didn’t and wouldn’t do the same with her.
But with Dru, it felt…right. Like it had with Tavi. Like I could do this for hours and never get tired of it.
Even that was a startling realization.
“I lost my best friend, too,” she admitted a few moments later, her head once again facing toward the window.
“She was in the wrong house at the wrong time. She started dating this guy that had a lot of issues and police did a raid on his house. She understandably freaked out, and she was accidentally shot when the man she was dating started shooting back at the officers. A bullet ricocheted off the fridge and lodged in her throat. It didn’t even go that far in, but it went in far enough that it ripped a hole in her carotid artery. She bled out in seconds.”
“Fuck,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“That was right around the time that my brother was sentenced to life in prison…and let’s just say, I was not in a good headspace.”
I squeezed her to me, unable to help myself from comforting her.
She didn’t say much more about the subject, and neither did I, but we both sort of tuned into each other at once, desperate to change the direction our brains were headed.
She sat up, putting her hands in my belly for purchase, and looked down at me from where she was sitting still straddling my leg.
I took her in, my gaze going from her messy hair to her creamy thighs, and everything in between.
No longer in scrubs, but a pair of cotton panties and a tank top, she looked somehow better.
There was nothing that was inhibiting me from seeing it all this time, and I loved what I was seeing.
Soft, pillowy thighs. A soft belly. A perfect handful of tits.
Her gray eyes were on fire as she looked down at me.
“Probably, I should go get ready for the day,” she admitted as she hesitantly placed her hand on my chest, right over my heart.
“Probably,” I admitted.
She slowly started to draw circles on my chest with her finger, her hair now falling forward to cover part of her face, the ends tickling my bare chest.
“I can’t say that I always do the smart thing,” she confessed. “But something about this doesn’t really feel wrong.”
She was right.
This didn’t feel wrong at all.
Even with the timing, I still felt like I wanted to crawl into her skin and stay there for the rest of my life.
I curled a few long locks into my hands, then slowly tugged until she understood what I wanted.
She leaned down, her mouth hovering over mine, and I pulled her the rest of the way.
The moment our lips touched, I felt like I’d stuck my finger into an electrical socket.
Alarms started to blare.
Angels wept.
Her mouth parted on a sigh, and I took full advantage, sweeping my tongue in to taste her while I could.
She groaned into my mouth, her thighs moving so that she was straddling my waist now instead of my thigh.
I latched onto her hip with one hand while holding onto her hair with the other, and deepened the kiss. She tilted her head and pressed herself harder against me, a moan leaving her lips when I twisted us so that she was now on bottom.
My hard cock ground into her pussy, and she stiffened, but not in a bad way.
In an “I’m going to come if you keep doing that” kind of way.
Feeling like there were too much fabric between us, I divested us both of our clothes while maintaining the kiss.